He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever...

“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, perhaps one of the most melancholy and lovely novels (and annotated) novels in my library.